


Girl Going Crazy (Requiem Aeternam)

by Sangerin



Category: Spooks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-21
Updated: 2005-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:06:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it comes, they’ve done so many drills they don’t even blink.  (Written in complete and intentional ignorance of season three, and posted the night before we finally get to see the resolution of the s2 cliffhanger here in Australia.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl Going Crazy (Requiem Aeternam)

**Author's Note:**

> Zoe gen. Pretentious use of tenses and without the direct benefit of a [](http://melwil.livejournal.com/profile)[**melwil**](http://melwil.livejournal.com/)-beta.

That first night she hadn’t slept. She hadn’t even turned off the light, because every time she closed her eyes she saw Tom pointing the gun at Harry and Harry falling to his knees. She sat in a chair drinking coffee, staring blankly across the room. At about three in the morning Danny turned on the television and found some sporting event being played on the other side of the world, but he left the sound off and didn’t even notice when England lost.

The second night she had dozed off, accidentally, at three in the morning. She woke up half an hour later, sweating in terror and screaming. Danny held her shoulders, but couldn’t reassure her, because the dream had been identical to reality except for the person at whom the gun was aimed. She  
slept for an hour the third night, on her bed rather than in the lounge room, but still with the light left on. She dreamed she was drowning.

By the end of the first week she was able to sleep fitfully. The gun still loomed in front of her eyes the moment they were shut, and her head spun with images of water and pebbles and Harry in the ambulance and the blood from his wound staining the cuffs of her shirt. She got to sleep by eleven, suffering from her lack of sleep in the previous week, but woke up every hour on the hour.

* * *

When it comes, they’ve done so many drills they don’t even blink. Zoe slips easily into the role of Emex – assesses the situation and disperses the group. There’s no need this time to seal off the section. They know soon that it’s not VX, not a chemical cocktail, just a bog-standard conventional bomb. Then another, and another, but still not the horrors they’ve trained through.

* * *

GCHQ sent counsellors in along with the acting section heads. Zoe should have been promoted to Tom’s position, but she refused to be considered. There were strangers on the grid, and nobody reacted well to the new reality. ‘Animosity’ was the most frequent complaint of the newcomers, although some (Harry’s temporary replacement) termed it ‘downright insubordination’ instead.

Miranda was long-gone, reassigned to Narnia to deal with the Tessas who didn’t get away. Her replacement and the new set of minions weren’t as bad, but they were still unwelcome. Except to Danny and Zoe, who knew how much they needed to talk. Together they went over every second of those last few days: re-evaluating every move that anyone had made. Together, separately. Officially, informally. Eating, sleeping, breathing ‘the incident’, until every piece had been boxed and bundled into comprehensible, logical fragments.

* * *

Even if there is time for counselling, no one needs it. They are in their element. Sam and Ruth double-team the research, and take a proud moment in the conference room to watch broadcasts of an arrest before plunging back into reports and cross-referencing.

Foreign dignitaries are Zoe’s nightmare. In the middle of an intelligence crisis they still have to look after foreign heads of government, and she breaks a box of pencils in frustration at not being able to wring the necks of the Met and the dignitaries themselves.

She catches Danny staring at a particular corner of the Grid, but the furniture has been re-arranged and it’s impossible to tell that there used to be an extra desk.

* * *

She tried to decide who it was she had lost – friend, brother, superior, partner, mentor, unrequited teenage crush, family. There was a hole in her life she was unable to name or fill. She knew only that it was there, somewhere in her gut or her heart or her head or all three. She tried to imagine how Ellie would have felt, if she’d cared enough. Tried to imagine how Christine felt, and dismissed the idea as ludicrous, as if the ice maiden had a heart warm enough to even notice his absence. Tried to imagine Ellie’s little Maisey, or Tom watching Peter’s body leave the Grid.

She tried to talk to Danny, but he had closed off. He glowered in front of the football and nursed pint after pint at the George.

* * *

She doesn’t sleep. No time, no inclination. It’s not something she needs.

A church near Kings Cross holds a memorial service the next day. She uses the privilege of leadership and leaves the Grid, sliding into the last pew as the vicar begins the opening prayer, and for a moment she lets it all overwhelm her.

One moment of being human. That’s all she gets now.

* * *

Sleep, on the rare occasions when it came properly, deeply, always seemed to end the same way: a sensation of water over her head and a dim  
impression of finality. Waking up with the shakes and wrapped in sheets damp from sweat.

* * *

She’ll find herself standing on a pebble beach looking out over the ocean. She’ll pick up a forked twig and toss it thoughtfully, sadly, onto the cold grey water.

  


  
  
_I can hear the ocean inside_   


  
_my head. Everything I say sounds  
like the surf pounding, sounding out  
each word. I am trying to make  
this count for something._   


  
Title from The Whitlams "Charlie No 2" and the text of the Requiem mass.

Written for the [](http://freeversefic.livejournal.com/profile)[**freeversefic**](http://freeversefic.livejournal.com/) challenge (and only a week late), and although written in tribute to many, many people who have died of various causes in the past two weeks, this is dedicated to the memory of Kirk. For your guitar playing, your liturgies, your sermons, and the way you could keep Miranda (CAN's Miranda) in check. Once we get over this, we'll all miss you. For now, it's still just shock and disbelief.


End file.
